The Eggplant Waits for No Man and Other Things I’ve Learned from Gardening.
If I’ve learned anything from tending to a vegetable garden for over a decade it’s that an eggplant, once harvested will, wait for no man…or woman or really anyone. Once it’s removed from the garden the eggplant, regardless of varietal, will become mushy and gross and generally inedible within twenty four hours. Store it wherever or however you’d like. Place it on the counter or pop it into the fridge. It won’t matter. Within less than a day you’ll end up with a vegetable that is about as appealing to eat as a molding appendix.
It’s given me a huge amount of respect for the whole farm to table concept given that I can’t even get produce from my garden to a table that’s less than twenty five feet away. Thank God I don’t have to rely on my garden for food but, then again, if I did I’d probably be a lot thinner.
Other than harvesting eggplants tending to a vegetable garden has taught me a number of other lessons, mostly in futility and expense. There’s no better way to spend a few bucks on seeds, raise them indoors, transplant them carefully outside, protect them from frost or drought, water, fertilize and generally fuss of them before you realize that it would have been easier to just buy whatever it was you were raising at the store in the first place. I conservatively estimate that the packet of zucchini seeds I bought for $2.38 really amounted to around $4,000 once time, water and other supplies were taken into account.
All of this effort also assumes that I’ll actually end up with anything to eat. By the time July rolls around most gardeners are swimming in zucchini and yellow squash but not me. For the past few years I have diligently cared for five zucchini plants and have harvested, precisely, four zucchini to date. This year we didn’t even get one.
Squash vine borers generally wipe out the crop once the flowers get going. Another issue is one of pollination. Regardless of how many flowers I plant around them the zucchini remain, stubbornly, celibate. One year my wife took to pollinating them with a Q-tip which felt a bit like cheating. The whole process made me mildly uncomfortable but we received four whole zucchini for out toils. If memory serves we even ate one of them before it rotted in our refrigerator.
Pests are a constant problem as well. Last year white flies infested our tomato plants. The year before that rabbits mowed down all of our green beans. This year deer and birds have plucked all of the blackberries off the canes. Squirrels are a constant concern and, apparently, will cheerfully eat just about anything including habanero peppers. To complicate matters one of my dogs has developed a taste for tomatoes which is somewhat less than helpful.
Of course there are the occasional times when the garden produces in such bounty that another set of problems presents themselves. Cucumbers are great and all but I’m not sure what to do with twelve of them at a time. Two jalapeno plants provide more peppers than any reasonable person could eat in a summer and, despite my dog’s best efforts, we’ll soon have enough cherry tomatoes to do whatever it is that people do with an abundance of cherry tomatoes. The eggplants have proven to be particularly fertile this year as well but, like the cucumbers, I’m not sure what to do with eight or nine of them. Maybe I’ll set up some sort of photoshoot featuring erotic vegetables and post it online.
My neighbors are having similar problems. We’re getting close to the time of year where it’s not unusual to find an unsolicited bag of produce on the front porch. I appreciate the thought, and I’d be lying if I hadn’t considered doing the same, but it’s really just kicking the produce problem down the line. I imagine them right now peaking out of their windows and diligently noting the times when I leave the house so that they can sneak over a few dozen onions or five pounds of garlic. I used to worry about teenagers leaving a flaming bag of poop on the doorstep. Now friends and neighbors leaving behind a boatload of heirloom tomatoes.
The entire situation is making relationships on the block a bit strained. We used to talk to our neighbors and wave at them as they drove by. This time of year we avoid all chatter or even eye contact for fear that it might lead to an offer we have to refuse but can’t because we’re in the Midwest and don’t want to be impolite.
“Hey Jim it’s good to see you,” I’ll say to a neighbor walking down the street.
“You too buddy. Hey do you need any…”
“Sorry gotta go. I’m having my toenails pulled out for medical reasons.”
What we could really use is a community based program that allows people donate vegetables anonymously without judgement, like a gun buyback initiative but for produce. That way there’d be no fear of finding a metric ton of zucchini in your front yard or 7,000 green beans in your unlocked car. I’d love to organize the project but, much like my neighbors, I’m too busy canning and drying and making meals with odd combinations of vegetables that no one really wants to eat. Dad’s famous roasted cucumber stuffed with jalapenos and green beans didn’t win any prizes the first time around and it certainly won’t the next three times this week.
I’ve never hoped for the onset of winter so much in my life.
About the Author
derekbremer Prior to his life as a stay at home father Derek spent more than a decade performing public relations and marketing functions for financial consulting firms and found the job to be precisely as exciting as it sounds. When not tending to his wife or daughter Derek enjoys subjecting the public to his unique take on fatherhood, travel and animal husbandry. He has been published in Scary Mommy, Sammiches and Psych Meds, The Good Men Project, HowToBeADad, Red Tricycle, RAZED, HPP and the Anthology "It's Really Ten Months Special Delivery: A Collection of Stories from Girth to Birth.
